Mental Mapping
Applied Cognitive Science
Catherine Rivers
Julia Antolovich
What is Mental Mapping?
History
1960s
Kevin Lynch
“The Image of the City”
1948
E.C. Tolman
1970s +
Coined “Cognitive
Mapping”
Extending through
other domains
Process of Mental Mapping
Exercise
Your Kenyan grandmother is in town visiting for the
weekend. She arrives at Union station at 9pm and
calls you to ask for directions to get to where you
are. You are currently in class listening to very
exciting (!!!!) presentations in TRP. She does not
speak english so cannot ask for directions and her
phone does not have google maps. In your most
eloquent swahili you must direct her to your
location. Draw a map of how your grandmother
would get from Union to TRP.
Applications of Mental
Mapping
Qualitative Research
Social Sciences
- Urban Planning
- Geography
Health Research
- Clinical trial recruitment
- Hospital floor designs
Operational Research
- Stakeholder analyses
Cognitive Mapping in Health
Research
Stage 1: Investigation of the terrain
Stage 2: Semi- structured interviews
Sketch map of Orange Farm
Cognitive map of Orange Farm
Mental Mapping Rationale
• MSM
• Participation
promotion
• Aesthetic mapping
• Clinical trials
Best Practices
Interviews/Ob
servation
Focus
Groups/Ethn
ography
Clinical Trials
Strengths & Weaknesses
▷Strengths
▷Weaknesses
Informative
Validity
Used in different
disciplines
Lack of
information on
why decisions are
made
Avoids research
bias
Subjective
Avoids
predictable
responses
Drawing anxiety
Small sample size
Key Sources
Gieseking, J. (2013). Where We Go From Here. Qualitative Inquiry, 19(9), 712-724.
Kitchin, R. & Freundschuh, S. (2000). Cognitive mapping: Past, Present and
Future (1st ed.). Routledge.
Mapping: Strengths and limitations. (2017). Retrieved March 2017, from
http://psc.dss.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/strengths.htm
Mental Maps: Social and spatial research on emtional and affective implications of
maps and space. (2017). Mentalmaps.info. Retrieved March 2017, from
http://mentalmaps.info/index.html
Moeser, S. (1988). Cognitive Mapping in a Complex Building. Environment And
Behavior, 20(1), 21-49.
Stadler, J., Dugmore, C., Venables, E., MacPhail, C., & Delany-Moretlwe, S. (2013).
Cognitive mapping: using local knowledge for planning health research. BMC Medical
Research Methodology, 13(1).